Jews Against Prejudice American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties

Name: Jews Against Prejudice American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties
Price: 17.25 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780231106399

ISBN-10: 0231106394

ISBN-13: 9780231106399

Edition: 1997

Authors: Stuart Svonkin

List price: $37.00

30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!

Marketplace

4 new & used from $17.25

what's this?

Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:

You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Description:

America's dark history of anti-Semitism, racism, and ethnic bigotry -- and many of the efforts to combat such prejudice -- has received growing attention in recent years. Yet one of the most important stories in America's struggle to overcome ethnic and religious hatred has gone largely untold. From the Depression to the late 1960s Jewish organizations -- working as the leaders in a broadly based social and political movement -- waged a determined campaign to eliminate all forms of discrimination and prejudice from American society. Today, many of the ideas that these groups developed about the sources of bigotry and its antidotes inform the civil rights and ethnic identity movements. … Stuart Svonkin delves into the archival records of America's three major Jewish defense groups -- the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Jewish Congress -- to offer the first comprehensive account of organized Jewish political activism against bigotry and for human rights. Jews Against Prejudice chronicles American Jewry's political ascendance, from the era before World War II, when Jewish defense groups first organized to fight mass anti-Semitism, to their emergence as the leaders of a liberal movement determined to address the nation's most pressing political and social problems. Svonkin explores the impact that these Jewish groups had in the fight against racial and ethnic stereotypes. Beginning in World War II Jewish social scientists and other intellectuals began a concentrated effort to investigate the social and psychological bases of prejudicial attitudes, outlooks, and behavior. By the end of the war these social scientists became convinced that all forms of prejudice, including anti-Semitism, shared the same social and psychological causes, which, if discovered, could be successfully treated and eliminated. For over twenty years Jewish intellectuals and activists worked hand in hand to formulate practical programs to combat prejudice. They pioneered tactics -- including educational programs in the schools, appeals for tolerance broadcast through the mass media, and legal challenges in the courts -- that remain among the principal weapons of today's civil rights activists. Svonkin shows how ideology and the shifting models of prejudice greatly influenced the means that each Jewish group used in its fight against bigotry and racism. He considers the far-reaching effects of anticommunism in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Jewish political groups moved to support liberal anticommunism as well as to oppose the demagoguery of such figures as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the leaders of the John Birch Society. Exploring the tensions between American and Jewish identities, Svonkin argues that the revelations of the Eichmann Trial, the growing concern over Israel's security, and the persistence of anti-Semitism all shaped Jewish activism -- driving the shift from the universalistic liberalism of the 1940s and 1950s to the cultural assertion and political neoconservatism of the late 1960s.

Book details

List price: $37.00
Copyright year: 1997
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 5/6/1999
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 472
Size: 0.60" wide x 0.90" long x 0.09" tall
Weight: 1.276
Language: English

Stuart Svonkin received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and will complete his J.D. from Harvard Law School in the Spring of 1999. He has taught American History and Jewish History at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research.



Acknowledgments


Introduction: Intergroup Relations and the Fear of Fascism



From Self-Defense to Intergroup Relations



Propaganda Against Prejudice



Teaching Tolerance



Law and Social Action



The Adoption of Liberal Anticommunism



The Contradictions of Cold War Liberalism



The Anticommunist Campaign in the Jewish Community



Return and Renewal


Notes


Bibliography


Index